德政、荒政与大同理想——20世纪前中国社会保障观念的流转与变迁

Moral Rule, Relief-based Rule and Great Harmony——The Evolution of China's Social Security Concepts Before the 20th Century

伴随新世纪中国进入"社会政策时代",经济思想史领域有关社会保障和福利问题的相关研究也大量出现。通过对20世纪前中国社会保障观念的梳理发现,中国传统的社会保障观念经历了德政、荒政、超越荒政的观念流转过程,在19世纪与西方福利制度初遇时又呈现出在大同世界的理念下理解福利与社会保障的传统思维倾向。因此,急于在中国近年密集出台的社会政策与中国传统社会保障观念之间建立联系的做法,很大程度上是对传统与现实的误解和误读。这种研究折射出经济思想史研究中的一种轻率态度,或是轻浮的历史陶醉,某种程度上还将损害学科的整体形象和吸引力。

As China entered the ＂social policy era＂ in the new century, a considerable amount of research on social security and welfare issues by academics of history of economic thought has also appeared. By combing the social security concepts in the pre-20th century Chinese history, it is found that they had evolved from moral rule, to relief-based rule, and to the post-relief-based rule. In the 19th century, when the Western welfare system was first introduced to China, China once again had the traditional tendency of understanding the welfare and social security with the great harmony thought. Hence, if anyone wants to quickly link the social policies promulgated by China in recent years to the Chinese traditional social security concepts, it would largely be a misunderstanding of both the tradition and reality：. This kind of research reflects a rash attitude in the study of the history of economic thought, or a frivolous historical obsession, which will damage the overall reputation and appeal of this discipline to some extent.